Which Thatcher would you vote for? Credit: Tom Stoddart/Getty
Like so many political rivals, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak are divided by a common ambition. Both want to cast themselves as the heir to Margaret Thatcher. To do that, they are erecting radically different accounts of Thatcher’s time in office, drawing on different parts of her record to teach different political lessons. As they trade allegations of “socialism”, “fairytales” and “something-for-nothing economics’, the two candidates are arguing not only about what they stand for, but about what Margaret Thatcher stood for — and what “Thatcherism” might look like in the future.
Thatcher has a hold on the Conservative imagination that no other leader can match. It is hard to imagine a candidate turning up to a leadership debate dressed as Stanley Baldwin, or modulating their voice to sound like Alec Douglas-Home. Ambitious young Conservatives do not promise “common-sense Majorism”, or curate images of themselves posing as Harold Macmillan. Nor do they launch their campaigns at the birthplace of Sir Edward Heath, like pilgrims seeking blessing at the Church of the Nativity. Only Churchill matches Thatcher’s charismatic authority; yet his standing as a war leader makes him less useful in domestic political debates. There is little mileage in promising to run the economy like Winston Churchill, or to impose Churchillian discipline on public services.
For two candidates who grew up in the Thatcher era, and who lack strong public profiles of their own, the allure of the Iron Lady is obvious. Like Thor’s hammer, Thatcher’s handbag can bestow godlike powers on those deemed worthy to lift it. Yet her centrality to the current campaign also tells us something about the modern Conservative Party, at a time when its political direction has rarely felt less certain.
Thatcher has come to represent three things that are sorely lacking in her party today: intellectual clarity, political longevity, and electability. Like many late-term governments, the Conservative Party often feels like it is reacting to events, rather than shaping them. It is struggling to hold together a diverse electoral coalition, with very different understandings of what it means to be “a Conservative”. It is about to elect its fourth leader in six years, and can smell defeat in the polls. In such a context, there is a particular allure to a Prime Minister who radiated ideological certainty, who set the agenda of British politics for a generation, and who won three general elections in a row. For a party that feels like it is lost in space, the gravitational pull of “Thatcherism” is hard to withstand. The challenge for Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak is to harness it to their purpose.
To do that, they are drawing on very different points in Thatcherite history. Perhaps curiously, as the younger of the two, Sunak seems more attracted to the early Thatcher. His Thatcher believed in “sound money”, “balancing the books” and “tackling inflation”. She treated the national finances like a household budget, where you don’t spend more than you earn and you lie awake at night worrying about a rise in prices. This is the Thatcher who raised taxes during a recession, in the belief that short-term growth was less important than putting the economy back on a secure foundation.
For Liz Truss, it is not the prudent housewife that glitters in the imagination but the “Iron Lady”: the swashbuckling, pugnacious Thatcher who cut taxes, sent the fleet to the Falklands, defied the Soviet Union and, as one of her MPs famously put it, could not “see an institution without hitting it with her handbag”. She seems drawn, in particular, to the later Thatcher: the Gloriana figure who strode the world-stage and boasted of unleashing entrepreneurialism. While Sunak sings what Spitting Image called the “Grantham Anthem” – a hymn to “hard work”, “family values” and attention to detail — Truss’s outfits, speech patterns and Instagram posts evoke more heroic Thatcherite characteristics, such as resolution, determination and a willingness to stand up for Britain in the world.
Neither of these visions is entirely false. They do, however, draw selectively on Thatcher’s time in power. Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister for 11 and a half years: a period that encompassed an enormous range of challenges and drew out different aspects of her personality. Periods of boom alternated with periods of bust, when revenues gushed in from North Sea oil or inflation neared 12%. A modest majority in the first term ballooned into the landslide majorities of the second and third, while the electoral base of the party shifted significantly across the decade. Subjects such as inflation, unemployment, the Cold War and European integration moved up and down the political agenda, while Thatcher’s own views evolved over time: most famously on Europe and the Single Market, but also on issues such as climate change and the law on homosexuality. As a consequence, her heirs have little choice but to pick selectively, as they seek to annex her legend to their own priorities.
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SubscribeThe choice isn’t between two Thatchers. It’s not about free market liberalism versus One Nation paternalism, and it’s not about relations with the EU.
It’s about who is most likely to be able to defend the interests of the people of the UK versus the interests of global corporations, represented by their trade union, known as the World Economic Forum which has “penetrated” (in the words of its head baron, Klaus Schwab) the cabinets of major world powers and international organisations.
Who will have the backbone to face down demands driven by the pharmaceutical wing of the union for more panicky, destructive “lockdowns” and mandates that aim to bully people into intravenous use of their products, which are likely to be promoted by the captured World Health Organisation?
Who will be able stand up to the “green” energy and transportation wing, and protect ordinary people’s ability to heat their homes and drive their cars?
Who will be able to resist the military and defence wing’s pernicious demands for escalation and prolongation of global conflicts and tensions?
Who will have the guts to face down the (largely East Asian-based) manufacturing wing’s demands for total market access for their products, at prices that drive out local producers and retailers?
Who will stand up to the agricultural wing’s demands to force small farmers out, and to make good, organically reared meat a luxury that most people can no longer regularly afford?
Who will try stop the tech wing from demolishing the minds of our children and adults alike with their addictive, manipulative, social media platforms and reality-distorting “metaverses”?
And who will have the stature and confidence to rise above the nonsensical wokist identity politics, promoted by all factions of the union to distract and divide the population that they seek to corral and control?
And the answer is…. neither.
Oh I’m not so sure. Let’s not forget that most people didn’t take Thatcher seriously when she was elected, either.
Being PM actually doesn’t call for megawatt intellectual brilliance. What it calls for is clarity of purpose, and the personal security and humility to surround yourself with the very best of advisors, and to know when to heed that advice, and when not to.
Finally, you need to be able to not give a damn about what others say or think about you, but to “let them howl” all they like – and stay focused on your goal.
I think it’s just possible that one of our contenders might have the necessary skills. I certainly hope so, or I think it is time to end the Tory party’s misery.
Rather than holding clarity of purpose and not letting criticism get to you, the modern politician uses ‘focus groups’, allowing intelligent actions to be replaced by short-term policies derived from ‘public opinion’, often influenced by what they saw on television earlier that day, and broadcast by people with even fewer principles and less research..
Otherwise known as “Rule by Twitter”
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Neither Sunak nor Truss have those skills or any vision. Sunak is a paid up member of the plutocracy who wants to keep things as they going thank you very much, and Truss is one the weirdest people I’ve ever set eyes on, like a bad actor playing a barmy politician.
Organic = famine. Ask a Sri Lankan.
Yes, and that seems to be the plan.
Excellent, succinct summary of what the WEF is trying to do and openly acknowledges it is trying to do.
Shocking how many people do not want to see what they are doing.
and who will walk on water and clap their hands to introduce the millennium in a land running with milk and honey
Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders would have
Is this another of those “knocking Thatcher” articles by someone who still can’t get over how successful she was ? It certainly looks that way.
My feeling was that the Conservatives would never be re-elected [as a majority government] until Thatcher died – and it pretty much worked out that way. Only then could we start to come to a fair assessment of her legacy and achievements.
I don’t believe Robert Saunders has the slightest understanding of Thatcher’s achievements and appeal. She shared the same sort of no-BS, down to earth appeal that won the Red Wall seats in 2019. The reason she could never do this while in power was the legacy of having to clean up 20-30 years of financial and industrial complacency in a few short years – mainly a result of mass nationalisation, poor management and destructive trade unions. But I doubt that Red Wall voters would prefer modern Labour and Keir Starmer over Thatcher.
An entire article that manages to ignore the grass roots popularity of Kemi Badenoch, because to explain it would undermine this article which must have been mostly written 15 years ago. A ‘Nick Cohen’ article, by which I mean you create a false hypothesis and then pile in selective memory/’facts’ to support the falsehood. I hope this ‘historian’ doesn’t actually teach people for day job.
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We arrived at a fair assessment of her legacy some time ago, and on the whole it isn’t good.
Deregulating the financial sector, integration in the single market, de-unionising the workforce, privatising and selling off public assets… no thank you.
Still, well done for defending the Falklands. And for defeating that prat Scargill. But other than that I’m afraid history is not on her side.
Just as well you’re not writing the history then. You couldn’t be more wrong.
Thatcher destroyed entire industries and the communities that supported them and replaced them with nothing
She destroyed the ‘one nation Tory party and the post war consensus’ no matter who got elected you governed in the interests of the entire country
40 years of neo liberalism have laid bare her legacy, remind us all how ‘trickle down economics’ doesn’t work
Eventually the Conservative Party has to follow the US Republican Party which is becoming the party of the Commoner,
Otherwise, what was the point of breaching Labour’s Red Wall?
Can I do you now, Sir?
Which Thatcher would I vote for? Neither of them! Because MT was PM was I born and now my hair is going grey. That’s how fusty it is to still be jostling to be her “true heir”.
Boris somehow managed to combine apeing Churchill (or trying to, it was always a pointless endeavour) with being completely, utterly and totally sui generis. Sunak and Truss manage to combine apeing Thatcher with looking like complete tools.
Really?… There’s a very strong parallel between Thatcher’s fears over schools teaching homosexuality and the current fears over schools teaching gender fluidity.
The early part of the debates were a lot about being “non Woke” – being seen to be woke did for Penny M
And as for the role of Women – one could suggest Thatcher was a fine role model for Women – the problem is other women thought she should be giving them a hand up & she was the ultimate “do it yourself and don’t expect others to do it for you”
There’s no such thing as society – its the power of the individual unleashed from the strictures of the state that matters…. (Not sure any of the candidates understand that though)
I’m with you on that. This article raises a few interesting points too: https://www.thinkinghousewife.com/2009/07/why-we-must-discriminate/
I was with you until you said “there’s no such thing as a society – only individuals”. How on earth can you call yourself a Conservative with that kind of mindset? Simple, it’s because you aren’t.
Conservatism is the oldest, and most natural, form of government; even tribes do it. I’d argue Conservatism is the true centre of politics, while Libertarianism is the right-wing. Conservatism is the protection of the society, and it’s people, by forming a group based upon shared characteristics, goals, values and ideas; it’s community based. It’s a mid-sized government, with an emphasis on the society being there to catch you as you fall but not there to coddle you, the importance of community, family, culture, keeping tradition alive for generations to come and thinking long-term. What you describe is Libertarianism, and that, my friend, is what got us here in this god-forsaken mess in the first place.
I was quoting Thatcher and in the context she said it I agree with her.
And where did you get the idea I’m a Conservative? – Is it just because the majority of the readers of Unherd are right of centre?
I’m old enough to remember the smell of defeat in the polls in 2015. Conservative majority was all but ruled out. William Hague asserted he would never see a Tory majority in his life time.
Another thing he got wrong then !
Yes, Hague gets everything wrong. And still The Times pays him good money to write for them on a regular basis.
Must be all that ale he claimed to have imbibed whilst working as a drayman in his youth, and “down with the lads”.
A common trait amongst all our political failures across the past 25 years is that people are quite happy to pay them to speak. Must be the only industry that embraces failure.
2015? The year Cameron won a clear majority?
Quite!
I find it a little odd that so many people look to Thatcher to define conservatism to the degree they do. Thatcher, to me, was notable as someone who was in many ways opposed to real political and economic conservatism, and she was a divisive figure among conservatives of her era for just that reason. I’m not sure there has been any real conservatism on the table in the UK, or the US, since the Thatcher/Reagan era.
I find it tiresome when such candidates invoke Thatcher. Do they not have enough confidence in persuading us of their own worth?
It is similarly irksome when we are told what someone long dead would have approved of, or not, e.g. Churchill and our membership of the EU. It’s not strongly persuasive, implying a lack of more solid reasons.
Yes, it’s a deeply vacuous and weird display, but it does tell us what they think of the voters: that we’re all a bunch of brainless clapping seals who will only respond to things we know and recognise. Though even by that metric it is flawed, as most voters probably can’t remember the Thatcher years!
A serious political party would find new ideas and craft new policies in line with their core values to meet the challenges of the moment. All this bunch are doing is some weird tribute act to a figure that most of the country either don’t remember or fell out of love with a long time ago.
I am not particularly concerned about Thatcher. I am concerned that this Government continues to sell off the family silver to all and sundry. Latest to go in a long list is a British satellite Company taken over by the French. What is it with the British psyche that we’re not happy unless a Johnny foreigner is running our businesses?
Sunak seems more attracted to the early Thatcher. His Thatcher believed in “sound money”, “balancing the books” and “tackling inflation”.
This is patently absurd.
Sunak has been Chancellor of the Exchequer for the last few years and poured hundreds of billions into the entirely unnecesary black hole of ‘covid measures’
His claiming to be of the Thatcher school is akin to that demonic moron who governs New York telling an audience, “Jesus would want you get the vaccine…. yeah… yeah”
Second article by this guy that I have read and so far only good in parts.
I would agree that all political parties should get over cosplaying. But why to get over Great Brits like Thatcher or Churchill? I found, it will be wiser for Labours get over Marx, Mao and Corbyn.
Nobody has commented on how Liz Truss with her supposedly “deprived childhood” and missed educational opportunities in the eighties could have such regard for Thatcher who was in control during that decade.
Robert Saunders wrote, “… the two candidates are arguing not only about what they stand for, but about what Margaret Thatcher stood for — and what ‘Thatcherism’ might look like in the future.”
Thatcher stood for pragmatism and realpolitik. Her attitude is epitomized by her assessment (of Mikhail Gorbachev): “I like Mr Gorbachev. We can do business together.” (See the reference.)
Ronald Reagan, like other non-populist conservatives, clung to conservative ideology. Thatcher convinced him to work with Gorbachev and, ultimately, freed Poland, Hungary, and other Eastern European countries from Russian enslavement.
Thatcher’s attitude and reasoning has utility today. The United States is undergoing rapid demographic change (due to its open borders). By 2040, Western culture will decline to the status of a minority culture, and this country will cease being a Western nation. Hispanic culture will become the dominant culture. (In California, Western culture is already rejected by most residents, and Hispanic culture dominates.)
The United States and the United Kingdom (and the rest of Europe) once had a close relationship due to a common Western culture, but by 2040, the United States will cease being a Western nation. If Thatcher were primer minister today, she would have recognized this fact and would have already begun distancing Great Britain from the United States.
Liz Truss is closer to Thatcher’s realpolitik than Rishi Sunak. Truss is the better heir to Thatcher’s legacy.
Get more info about this issue.
I don’t think Reagan or Thatcher had much to do with freeing East European countries. Those countries did it themselves.
Actually I think they did have at least something to do with it. In standing up to the USSR, Reagan and Thatcher gave the people of eastern Europe a bit more courage and hope than they might otherwise have had.
America likes to take credit but those east european countries were all broke and didn’t know how to fix it. Their people were already demonstrating. The force for change came from within. Gorbachev was a key figure because he didn’t intervene.
Ronald Reagan ramping up US Defence spending, including’Star Wars’ finished off the Soviet beast in no uncertain terms. ‘They’ just couldn’t afford to keep up and had to admit that their seventy year experiment in barbarism was at an end.
Had this not happened the ‘Helots’ of Eastern Europe would never have freed themselves.
Then you are mistaken.
It took Reagan and Thatcher to break the will of the Russians. Ultimately the Russians were no longer able to brutally suppress their Eastern European satellites (or do I mean colonies ?). The Russians were killed off by their failure in Afghanistan (and US funded resistance), their inability to compete with advanced western technology (technical failings and inability to finance it) and the growing reach of international communications (in those days fax machines). That and the sclerotic nature of totalitarian regimes which promote and reward incompetence (nothing’s changed in Russia yet).
It took firm, steadfast leadership to do this.
You may not be grateful. The Eastern Europeans certainly are.
“That and the sclerotic nature of totalitarian regimes which promote and reward incompetence (nothing’s changed in Russia yet)”
Since covid19 arrived, you could just as so be describing the UK and most of “the West”
Then why didn’t they do it sooner?
I think they had tried earlier but it had to wait for Gorbachev who did not intervene when the communist regimes started to fold. In 1989 when the Berlin wall fell and those regimes crumbled America was mainly a bystander. George Bush had the good sense to watch and wait and not interfere. The Berlin wall didn’t come down because Reagan made a speech. The Germans took it down themselves. People were demonstrating across those countries and their leaders realised, probably reluctantly, that things had to change which it did. All that was internal.
nonsense
You seem to have it in for Hispanic people, which I find both odious and silly.
You do know Spanish-language culture derives ultimately from Spain, yes? Not Russia or China. Spain. And I can’t think of a more traditionally “Western” institution than the Catholic Church (which, incidentally, also had a not insignificant role in securing the freedom of Eastern Europe).
As an aside, I’d have thought there are many things “white” American conservatives (for that seems to be what you actually mean by “Western”) would admire about Hispanic culture: an emphasis on family, tradition, hard work, and being against abortion, to name but a few.
This is getting tiresome.
If you’ve got something new to say, please do.
But I think we’re all fed up with your Hispanic nonsense now (Have you actually been to California by the way ?).
But, if you’re that sure you’re onto something real, go ahead and write a proper article on it for UnHerd.
While other Western countries are undergoing a change in culture due to peoples who have no common ground at all, the USA is growing due to the Latinos who are generally God-fearing and hard-working, and who have strong family values.
Latinos that I talk to want to secure the border. Illegal immigration hurts us all. We all want a safe country and to live the original ‘American Dream.’
The USA will not ‘cease to be a Western nation’.
Hispanic culture is quite different from Western culture.
For example, Hispanics expect, demand, and receive preferential treatment.
Hispanics commit murder at 3 times and 6 times the rate at which Americans of European ancestry or Asian ancestry, respectively, commit murder. Get more info about this issue.
Hispanics refuse to assimilate into Western society. They deliberately refuse to study English to the same extent to which Asian-Americans study English.
According to a report by NPR, “students whose home language was Spanish were considerably less likely to reach [English] proficiency than any other subgroup. And, on the extreme end, Spanish speakers were almost half as likely as Chinese speakers to cross the proficiency threshold. … It’s no surprise that researchers studying this trend in the past have used income-based controls — such as whether a child qualifies for free or reduced lunch. Those researchers have still found Spanish speakers lagging [their peers (in other ethnic groups) with similar economic status].” Get more info about this issue.
Consequently, Hispanics are over-represented among students who fail a literacy test for employment as a teacher in elementary and secondary schools. Under pressure from Hispanic organizations, the Board of Regents of New York terminated the use of the literacy test. Get more info about this issue.
“Hispanic” which is to say, Spanish speaking? Last time I looked Spain was part o the west, and I’m not sure what else you’d call the Spanish speaking countries of Central and South America if not “western”.
I live in an area with a lot of Hispanics. They are very honest and hard-working, doing many of the lousy jobs Americans will no longer do. There are criminal elements, but every culture has some. California is a little different. It’s full of nutcases that seem intent on destroying all vestiges of Western culture, but that seems to be an educated liberal woman kind of thing.
The Conservative Party is always going to hark back to the best bits of the past. It’s in their political nature.
Should the candidates for PM hark back to Blair instead?
Please God, no.
Labour candidates certainly should ! A certain vote loser for them now.
According to Ayn Rand, a society running a mixed economy is a society that’s committing slow-motion suicide. Over my lifetime ((I’m 57) I’ve seen the UK move more and more towards central planning (technocracy) and further away from free market capitalism. The consensus was that Thatcher rolled back the frontiers of the state. However, in my view, she didn’t do nearly enough, e.g. in cash terms, government spending rose during her tenure. This splurge was used to pay welfare benefits and it was finance from taxes levied on N Sea oil extraction. She should have used this tax windfall to cut income tax more radically.
All societies have to resolve the problem of scarcity, brought on by the combination of limited resources unable to fully satisfy unlimited wants. The #NewWorldOrder / #GreatReset whatever it’s called this week is just a new name for technocracy. In this type of system, bureaucrats decide what’s going to be produced. They also decide on the production methods to be used, and finally, which groups in society will get a chance to consume, and who will go without. That’s a lot of power, isn’t it? The ONLY alternative to #technocracy is #freemarket #capitalism, where consumers & producers call all the shots. How many know this? Answer, virtually nobody, because real (free market) economics isn’t taught in 11-16 schools. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyY38-fSYPw&t=190s
What did Ayn Rand ever do that we should think she had a clue about how to manage a national economy?
It is not the Tories who “need to get over Thatcher”. It is the ignorant and deluded commentators like Robert Saunders with their fantasy historical views and pushing their ideological agenda (not helped by the fact that they didn’t live through the period and have no real understanding of what happened and why).
We still have a shortage of welfare houses because when Thatcher sold the houses they were not replaced.
I wonder if this is because she did not realise how intelligent she was and when others did not achieve as much she thought they were simply not trying hard enough. Neither of our candidates are as intelligent nor as clever as she was.